


Hand in Hand

by Crimson Rosé (Poison_Rose)



Series: TsukiKage Prompts ☾♛ [4]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Time Skip, Tsukishima Kei Has Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:21:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27035611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poison_Rose/pseuds/Crimson%20Ros%C3%A9
Summary: Kageyama got a contract offering from a volleyball team in Italian SuperLega. It wouldn't be a tough decision to make if he didn't have a boyfriend whom he loved very much. Kageyama couldn't say he liked a long distance relationship, or breaking up, but he had made his decision. It was only fair that the only remaining choice, to stay in his life or to leave, was up to Tsukishima.Prompt 4: Decision
Relationships: Kageyama Tobio/Tsukishima Kei
Series: TsukiKage Prompts ☾♛ [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1859041
Comments: 8
Kudos: 119





	Hand in Hand

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe I power-typed this and finished in two days. I was planning on posting this as a short drabble on my Twitter, but it somehow ended up to be a 3k whole fic...

Title: Hand in Hand

Prompt: Decision

It was a sunny day. Kageyama walked home with heavy, invisible weight hanging down both his ankles.

Today, his coach had called him into the office and stared into Kageyama’s eyes with all seriousness he had ever seen from the middle-aged man. His hands were folded together on the table in a rare gesture of formality when he told Kageyama that an amazing opportunity had come for him. Kageyama had been hesitant when he first heard the team’s name falling from his Schweiden Alders coach’s mouth. A team in Italy’s SuperLega had expressed interest in having him on their team.

To be very honest with himself, Kageyama was happy. A warm feeling bubbled in his chest at the notion that a strong team in Italian league recognized his ability and wanted him. But that fluttering warmth was short-lived when a sudden realization caught up to him. If he went to Italy, he’d have to be separated from his boyfriend. And the more he thought about it, the more dreading he became. Kageyama wasn't ready for the separation yet.

If anyone had a say in this matter, they would answer without hesitation that Kageyama would jump at this chance to play on a European team. Or at least this was what the majority of opinions on the volleyball enthusiast forums said to a poll on Kageyama's what-if possibility of career advancement a couple years ago. Volleyball was the young setter's life, someone had commented, he wouldn't give it up just because he was attached to a boyfriend.

Kageyama thought that those people knew nothing. Sure, they knew that he and Tsukishima were couples and that they lived together, but like most of the time, they didn't pay his boyfriend much attention. Some even thought that Tsukishima was too bland to be dating the Kageyama Tobio, a comment that had Tsukishima cracking up for days before becoming solemn for another week.

Kageyama loved Tsukishima. There was no question about his feelings. He wanted to stay close to his salty boyfriend, to explore dessert cafés together, and to walk around the lit up city on Christmas eve with hands intertwined. But volleyball was also important to him. It had been a part of his life even before Tsukishima. Kageyama loved his boyfriend, but he knew that he would eventually agree to Ali Roma's contract.

Coming home with a heavy heart, Kageyama didn't know how to bring this up to his Tsukishima without him spiralling down his self-esteem issues again. While Tsukishima was getting better at acknowledging his own presence in Kageyama's star athlete life, Kageyama still couldn't erase the forced, sad smile and the shaking voice that was aimed at him on the day that he had finally gathered up courage to ask Tsukishima out. He wasn't ready to face those fragile, jewel-like eyes that had fear swirling in them like an ocean.

So when Tsukishima came back from his classes at college, Kageyama said nothing. He acted as if nothing happened. He turned himself into a koala, attaching his arms to Tsukishima's waist, like usual. He pouted and glared at Tsukishima when the man teased him. Kageyama had thought that he was doing quite well at hiding how troubled he was about the road that future had in store for him. That was until they finished their dinner.

Kageyama walked into their shared bedroom. Tsukishima followed him inside and closed the door. A soft click of the lock was the only given clue.

Kageyama turned around and saw Tsukishima standing straight with his arms crossed.

"Are you going to tell me what has been bugging you?" Tsukishima asked, raising his brows.

Kageyama bit his lips. It wasn't his habit to lie, especially not in front of Tsukishima who could take his words and produce hundreds of worst outcomes with his overactive, pessimistic brain. "I got an offer."

Tsukishima blinked. "Another curry commercial?" Kageyama could see a tint of humour on the blonde’s lips when he talked about the one curry commercial that he had starred in. He liked to tease Kageyama about it.

"A volleyball offer," he said, and suddenly, light-hearted amusement was erased from Tsukishima’s face as tensed up. Kageyama lowered his eyes to the floor, refusing to look at his boyfriend's face. He knew what he would find.

Silence stretched out between them. It wasn't the comfortable silence that had been accompanying them for the past five years, but it also wasn't the suffocating silence that he hated. And the uncategorizable stillness made him feel even worse.

After a while, Tsukishima spoke, his voice trembling, and Kageyama glared at the wooden floor of his bedroom even harder. Everything about this, the silence and Tsukishima who was trying so hard not to break in front of him, reminded him of the day he confessed. "Where?"

No matter how much Kageyama wished to stay silent, he knew Tsukishima deserved to know. "...Italy."

"Italy..."

No, Kageyama absolutely didn't like what he heard in Tsukishima's voice. He didn't like how small Tsukishima sounded.

"Why were you trying to hide it?"

Oh shoot. This line of thought wasn't good.

Kageyama's head shot up. "Tsukishima, I wasn't trying to–"

"You were." His boyfriend cut him off. Now that Kageyama had his eyes on the blonde, he could see how those lips thinned into a suppressed frown.

"I wasn't! I just–I'm trying to figure out how to tell you." Kageyama tried to explain, his words rushing out in a flood of syllables that his brain didn't register. "I–"

Kageyama was searching his head for some kind of justification, when Tsukishima cut him again.

"There's no need to bite your tongue over it. I'm not mad."

Kageyama paused, something dangerously similar to hope flickered in his chest. "You're not?"

Tsukishima slowly shook his head. "No. I've always known you're meant for something bigger than this small island, something bigger than me. It's just a matter of time before an opportunity like this found you."

No no no. That sounded wrong. Kageyama stepped closer to Tsukishima. His boyfriend was unlocking the door when Kageyama spoke, "Tsukishima. You know I love you. You know I–"

"I know you’ll go. I never have any doubts about that. And I won't stop you." As Tsukishima uttered those sentences, Kageyama was rooted to the floor at the sight of clear liquid gathering at the corner of his boyfriend's eyes. His boyfriend stubbornly raised his chin to prevent the pool from dripping down. "I love you too, Kageyama."

Before Kageyama could say anything more, Tsukishima quickly turned around and slammed the bedroom door closed.

"Tsukishima!" Kageyama yelled, running after him, but the front door to their apartment swung close.

Tsukishima left.

Kageyama had half a mind to chase him, to do something to assure his boyfriend that he too didn't want to leave him behind. But he had no idea what to say. What was the point of saying he didn't want to leave when, at the end of the day, he was going to leave anyway.

Tsukishima said he wasn't upset, but he left, like he did when their harmless arguments went too far and astray. He needed to calm down. Usually Tsukishima would just hide away on the balcony with the curtains drawn shut, needing an alone time for anger and sadness and hurt to fade away. He would come back inside when he could think straight again. That was how Tsukishima dealt with emotions, and Kageyama hoped that this time would be no different.

Tsukishima left the apartment instead of the common area, but Kageyama really hoped that the end result would be the same as always. He wasn't sure if he could handle anything different.

Tsukishima wasn't back the next day. Kageyama came home with emptiness greeting him instead of a warm  _ Okaeri _ . He saw the white headphones on the night stand on Tsukishima’s side of the bed. Kageyama had hope.

Two days after, Tsukishima still wasn't there. The right side of the bed where Tsukishima used to sleep was cold. Draping the blanket that didn’t seem to chase away the chill onto himself, Kageyama curled into himself and dreamed of golden orbs.

Three days after Tsukishima left, Kageyama couldn't concentrate during the practice. His aim was off and his read on blockers was flawed. The coach pulled him aside to ask what had happened. Kageyama said he wasn't feeling well when in truth, Kageyama thought he was losing something precious. He clung to the flickering of hope.

The fourth and the fifth day passed achingly slow. Kageyama felt like he was slowly dying. Waking up on a cold, empty bed was like a slap of reality in his face. Each step he took to the shower was weighed down by the absence of warm coffee bean aroma from the kitchen. His heart broke into little pieces as he prepared himself breakfast, no more healthy meal waiting for him on the table. Kageyama knew he loved Tsukishima, but he didn't know he loved his boyfriend so much that five days without seeing the mop of blonde felt like eternity.

If he was like this after five days, would he survive going to Italy? Would their relationship survive the long distance between them?

On the sixth day, Kageyama woke up and saw a message notification on his lock screen. His eyes blew wide when the sender's name registered in his sleepy brain. He quickly grabbed it and unlocked the screen.

**Tsukishima:** I'm sorry for not going back. I need time to think.

**Tsukishima:** Wait for me.

**Kageyama:** I will.

They were short messages that told Kageyama a bit next to nothing about where Tsukishima was or when he was coming home, but he was relieved. Tsukishima didn't disappear. He texted him. He explained to him, at least in brief details, what he was doing.

Of course, Kageyama would wait for Tsukishima. He waited for three years before confessing his love for the man. He could wait days, weeks, or even years if needed.

So Kageyama waited.

His concentration at practice improved noticeably, and he caught a glimpse of relief in his teammates' eyes. He did his routine training while thinking about Tsukishima and about what would happen to their relationship once Tsukishima figured out what he wanted to do.

There were two obvious choices, one being that they maintained their relationship and tried to make it work with a seven-hour time difference between them, and another one being that they broke up and went separate ways, sparing them the hurt that came with longing not being able to touch each other.

Kageyama preferred the first one. He would call Tsukishima everyday so he could feel more or less like Kageyama was there with him, even if Kageyama had to break his own sleep schedule. He would send Tsukishima so many texts reminding him to eat enough that the blonde texted him back to shut up. He would order bouquets online and have them delivered to Tsukishima when Sendai Frogs won each match. Really, Kageyama would do everything in his capability to make up for his physical absence from Tsukishima's life. But it wasn't his choice to make.

His choice was to go or to not go to Italy, and he had already chosen to go. His heart was with Tsukishima, but volleyball was his joy and his value, so he wouldn't lose sight of it no matter what. He had known the answer since the first glance he took at the paper listing terms and agreements. It was painful, but he had made his decision to leave. This time it was Tsukishima's choice to choose whether he wanted to stay.

Ten days after Tsukishima walked out, a tall blonde man rushed into their apartment with the urgency of an earthquake alarm. Kageyama, who was absently watching TV in the living room, craned his neck to look at the direction of the front door and shot up from his seat at the sight of the familiar figure.

Kageyama opened his mouth, dread filled him as he realized that now was the time for the existence of their relationship to be decided, but at the same time, he was happy. He had no idea that just seeing his boyfriend's face could make him smile like an idiot Tsukishima told him he was.

He was about to utter his unplanned first word when Tsukishima beat him to it. He strode to the coffee table in front of the couch and slammed down a paper in his hand a little too hard, his face determined. "I'm going with you."

Kageyama blanked out for a few seconds. That was not what he had expected to hear. "...Huh?"

Tsukishima glared at him. "What? Was all those sayings about loving me a lie?"

"No!" Kageyama felt like ripping out his hair. Why must Tsukishima always think what he said was a lie? True, he did tell Tsukishima half-truths sometimes, but he wouldn't do that to something that was so important to their relationship.

"Then that settles it. I'm going too."

Kageyama saw his world explode in front of his eyes. "What do you mean?"

His boyfriend rolled his eyes, and that was when Kageyama noticed that the breaking Tsukishima from the other was gone. The man in front of him was confident, fire burning in his eyes. "I'm going to Italy with you, Kageyama."

To Italy?

"Wait-what? How? You have college. And Sendai Frogs." Kageyama pointed out, genuinely confused. He wasn't ready for the bomb that Tsukishima had just dropped.

Tsukishima jabbed his finger at the paper lying innocently on the coffee table like it would explain everything. Picking it up, Kageyama read the form that was filled with Tsukishima's neat handwriting, and kami, it did explain  _ almost _ everything. A big header was written in kanjis, "Study Abroad Program for Graduate Students."

Kageyama's eyes widened at that and doubled the size when he saw the stamp of approval on the lower left side, at the end of the paper. He looked up to see Tsukishima's self-satisfied smirk.

"As you can see, I will be studying in Italy and earning my PhD."

"What about Sendai Frogs?" Tsukishima couldn't have found a team in Italy. They didn't just randomly accept applications from foreigners.

His boyfriend shrugged at that. "I was planning to take a break from it during my PhD anyway."

"You quit?" Kageyama asked incredulously, rage starting to stir in him like a storm. He was a little flattered that Tsukishima seemed to be as attached to him as he was to the guy, but there was no way he would allow Tsukishima to quit volleyball just because he wanted to follow him to Italy. Despite what Tsukishima said, Kageyama knew that volleyball was a big part of Tsukishima’s life too.

“I didn't quit. I got  _ a break _ from it,” the blonde explained easily, “I'm still on the team, just not playing in the upcoming season and the season after that. Players who are still students do it sometimes.” He paused for a bit, before shrugging, "I have to take up a part-time job though. I don't play, so I don't get paid."

This was too much for Kageyama to handle. He had spent days, imagining and re-imagining how they would be separated no matter if Tsukishima chose a long distance relationship or breaking up.

But Tsukishima had chosen a third option, the one that not even Kageyama had dreamed of.

"You are coming with me," Kageyama muttered, to himself than to his boyfriend who stood a few feet away from him.

"Yes," Tsukishima answered anyway.

"To Italy."

"Uh-huh."

"We...can stay together?"

"Absolutely."

Kageyama jumped onto Tsukishima and clung to his neck like a toddler. He knew how heavy he was and how much slimmer Tsukishima was compared to him, but he didn't care. He wrapped his legs around Tsukishima's waist and kissed him with vigor that came with overflowing happiness.

Tsukishima moved his arms to support Kageyama's hip while kissing back, equally deprived of the touch from his boyfriend. He felt bad about leaving. He felt bad that it had taken him six days to finally give Kageyama anything that remotely resembled an explanation. But if he had stayed a moment longer, he would have broken down. He would have been a mess. Tsukishima loathed seeing the guilt and worry in Kageyama's blue eyes while he dived down into his own head, so he preferred to break down and scream and cry in his own presence.

The truth was, Tsukishima always knew. It was certain that one day Kageyama would leave. He had thought that he would be fine with it. He had thought that he could survive the distance and the absence. But he had overestimated himself.

There was no more closed-off, removed, ever guarded Tsukishima. That person had died long ago when a glowing light named Kageyama Tobio had torn down his defensive forts. All that was left of him was the raw, open-book version of himself.

Sometimes he felt vulnerable at the lack of comfort behind those walls that had always been there to protect him. He feared how easy it was for people to hurt him, so occasionally, he brought the walls up, just enough to deter people from trying to take advantage of him. But when he came back home to the assurance that Kageyama was here, bricks and stones crumbled down like falling rain.

Yes, Tsukishima felt vulnerable, but he wouldn't say he hated this version of himself, not when he could see how Kageyama's face lit up when Tsukishima shared his thoughts with him. Not when Kageyama looked like he was blessed by a deity of some sort when Tsukishima admitted that he’d had a bad day.

They kissed until all the air left their lungs, before Kageyama pulled back but didn't release Tsukishima from his clutch.

Kageyama was the physically affectionate type. Tsukishima knew his boyfriend wouldn't let him go until he filled up his empty tank of skin ship to the brim, so he went for the couch and slowly sat down with a grown-up man still attached to his hip.

"When will you be leaving?" Tsukishima asked, his hands carding through silky dark hair.

Kageyama hummed, recalling the details in the unsigned contract. "Volleyball season doesn't start until September, but I have to be there in June..."

"To get used to your new teammates." Tsukishima finished the sentence for him. He looked at the study abroad forms on the coffee table. "I'll follow you soon enough. Universities start in September."

Three months, Kageyama realized, instead of not physically seeing each other for who knew how long, it became only three months, and then they would find each other again and walk down the streets of Rome hand in hand like they had done in Japan.

Never in his wildest dream had this possibility occurred to Kageyama. His throat constricted. It became difficult to swallow, and he felt like tearing up. He was just so happy, so glad that he wouldn't have to let go of the man in his arms.

For the thousand times, Kageyama thanked whatever kamis and deities in his life for guiding him to meet Tsukishima and for letting him hold onto Tsukishima just a little longer.

He didn't know what the future would be like for them, in a foreign land, among people who spoke a foreign language, but for now, Kageyama was happy in the gentle arms of his boyfriend.

**Author's Note:**

> Come scream with/at me on Twitter [@BlaBlaBla__Me](https://twitter.com/BlaBlaBla__Me?s=09)  
> You can talk to me/ask me questions/request TsukiKage prompts anonymously here: [Drop Me a Message](https://curiouscat.qa/CrimsonRose_Monika)  
> Also Tumblr [Crimson Rosé](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/crimsonrose-monika) I'm a Tumblr beginner, so bear with me :)
> 
> Lastly, if you are **18 and over** , we have a [TsukiKage Thirst Discord Server](https://disboard.org/server/754566589491183677), so come join us!


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